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MSFS20 Blender cloth simulation baked to bones

Hi guys,

I have been tring for weeks to achieve some animation on flags.
I have followed a tutorial that trfsd gave us (thanks to him !)
However, this is the best I can have today (I have the Default_State)

Can someone help me ? I'm totally blocked !

Of course, I will gladly pay beers or coffee :)

1633281042774.png




EDIT: Seems there is an issue with the script 1 and 2. I did it manually and it's all ok now
 

Attachments

  • Creating an animated flag.pdf
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  • step_8.zip
    409.6 KB · Views: 228
Last edited:
trfsd said:
I have added US state flags to bring the total number of flags in the library to 300. More importantly, with some suggestions from @Photosbykev and a little reading here on the forums, I worked out the specific steps to create a "repaint" of a flag model, and wrote up the instructions in a tutorial document that is included in the download. So if you can't find the flag you need in the 300 that are already in the library, you can create your own artwork and repaint one of the existing flag models in the library. Have fun.
Click to expand...
I'm going to try today cuz I couldn't find a Canadian Flag.. :)
 
@trfsd
I'm following your tutorial, but am trying to adapt it for a windsock, whereas everything seems to be written for a flag. However, I'm getting stuck on baking the cloth simulation with the bones.

I have everything set up exactly as described in your tutorial, the only difference is I have been doing everything the scripts do manually, because they haven't been working correctly. After I get the animation start and end that I want in the timeline and do the "Pose>Animation>Bake Action process, I can see keyframes generated in Nonlinear Animation. I then proceed to rename the Action Strip, drop down the NLA track and rename it to match.

If I hover over the NLA track and hit tab, I can see keyframes. They keyframes do not appear on my Dope sheet or Action editor until I do this.

The bones and mesh are not affected by the animation in any way. It's almost as if they are not linked, however as far as I'm aware, they are.

Any ideas?
 
Small update. I was able to figure out how to get the cloth simulation to bake to the bones.. kinda. I forgot to add a track to Bone Constraint. However, now I'm greeted with this jumbled twisted mess:


whatamess.PNG


Any ideas? This is what the simulation looks like:
normal_sock_sim.PNG
 
trfsd I put one of your windsocks to my scenery. The simple one, put ui on top of my pole. Its okay in the developer mode, but whe I export the scenery and load it in the sim, it just moves a bit lower. Is it normal or any limitation? I have this problem with the default windsock also, it doesnt keep scale.

Thank you
 
Fiideell said:
trfsd I put one of your windsocks to my scenery. The simple one, put ui on top of my pole. Its okay in the developer mode, but whe I export the scenery and load it in the sim, it just moves a bit lower. Is it normal or any limitation? I have this problem with the default windsock also, it doesnt keep scale.

Thank you
Click to expand...
Have a look at the FAQ at https://flightsim.to/file/14024/windy-things#pills-faq. You cannot scale Simobjects.
 
Hey there,

with the help of the first posts in this thread of @Mikea.at I've managed it to successfully import my first animation to MSFS :) Thanks for that!
As a next step, i want to create a separate animation depending on the current windspeed. The xml stuff is totally clear for me. But i have no idea which are the steps in @Mikea.at instructions, that have to be adjusted (or redone for each animation).
Can please someone give me a hint? :) I'm new to NLA and DopeSheet in Blender. So, the more details, the better.

PS: I'm working without the py script
 
Last edited:
So I have a question regarding the tutorial on creating my own custom animated flag. I am following @trfsd 's tutorial on this and have gotten to the third section, where I have added an armature (a bit off the cloth-plane as per the instructions in here) and thereafter bones and ensured to snap them to the vertices created by the "00" Python script. I now have to rotate both the armature (and bones) and the plane 90 degrees from the XZ-axis to the Y axis, but when I do this, the plane with the "flag_cloth", which had the transforms applied and therefore was able to rotate around the flag pole evenly, now seems to use the armature as a pivot-point, thus rotating unevenly (ref. the pictures).

untitled.png


untitled2.PNG


What can I do about this? If I simply alter the "coordinates" in the object properties, the armature will not be snapped to the vertices in the plane with the "flag_cloth".
Do I need to redo the whole alignment?

Thanks in advance. This is really a steep learning curve to me, and having no pictures on a "step by step" isn't my thing 😅

/VALROK
 
I rotated the plane with the armature to face the positive Y-axis and then "realigned" them both roughly. I don't know if that is going to cause issues at some point, but I am at a loss - as mentioned, this is a steep learning curve to me.

I now face an issue under the section 7 of the tutorial made by @trfsd , AFAIK with help from @Mikea.at and @karlo922 , with creating the wind speed animation. My issue is, when I create the wind effect under the new collection with the "flag_cloth"-plane, the cloth "slides" down the flag pole no matter the wind speed and then "rips off" it, when starting the animation at wind speed of 100+. The bones seem to animate fine and stay in place though. I need the cloth to stay in place and animate in the wind.

Video of the bug:

My project is linked below, if anyone needs to look through it for bugs:
https://we.tl/t-hzWqrPNGCh

I sincerely hope someone can assist me in this issue.

Thanks in advance!

/VALROK
 
VALROK said:
I rotated the plane with the armature to face the positive Y-axis and then "realigned" them both roughly. I don't know if that is going to cause issues at some point, but I am at a loss - as mentioned, this is a steep learning curve to me.

I now face an issue under the section 7 of the tutorial made by @trfsd , AFAIK with help from @Mikea.at and @karlo922 , with creating the wind speed animation. My issue is, when I create the wind effect under the new collection with the "flag_cloth"-plane, the cloth "slides" down the flag pole no matter the wind speed and then "rips off" it, when starting the animation at wind speed of 100+. The bones seem to animate fine and stay in place though. I need the cloth to stay in place and animate in the wind.

Video of the bug:

My project is linked below, if anyone needs to look through it for bugs:
https://we.tl/t-hzWqrPNGCh

I sincerely hope someone can assist me in this issue.

Thanks in advance!

/VALROK
Click to expand...
Looks like you forgot to set the the "Pin Group" inside your Cloth settings. You can find it under "Cloth Modifier --> Shape --> Pin Group".
 
sasquotschi said:
Looks like you forgot to set the the "Pin Group" inside your Cloth settings. You can find it under "Cloth Modifier --> Shape --> Pin Group".
Click to expand...
Thanks for your answer. This appeared to be the issue regarding the plane "sliding" off the pole. It got me a bit further into animating the flag.

I've gotten to section 7 in the tutorial, under:
"Set the Timeline back to frame 0.
If you are going to repeat this step to make another animation with a different set of Cloth and/or Wind settings, then select all bones and run the “01” script while still in Pose Mode."
Click to expand...

I have baked the first animation with the middle intensity of the wind ("1200"). In order to create a somewhat "perfect loop", I selected frame 63 as the starting frame and frame 481 as the ending frame (as seen on the timeline below):
untitled.png

Now.. When I move the action ("Wind_1200") onto its own NLA track, and then move its left edge to start at frame 0, the animation doesn't activate until the needle passes frame 63. How do I go about "setting the timeline back to frame 0", as the tutorial (attached) states and so the animation will start, when starting the playback?

I want to recreate the settings in the tutorial, so I am sure the flag will behave differently in different wind conditions and utilize MSFS winds.

Project file: https://we.tl/t-gbd0HTbm5S
 

Attachments

  • Creating an animated flag.pdf
    438.4 KB · Views: 431
Last edited:
At least I've managed to add several NLAs to the armature of the windsock and bind them to the wind velocity :) But the rest is awful! No idea where the strange distortions come from and why the windsock is rotated this way


Here is a screenshot from what i exported:
1645047964091.png
 
Last edited:
To fix the distortion, search for the default_state animation. This fixes the distortion.
www.fsdeveloper.com

MSFS20 - Blender cloth simulation baked to bones

I wrote some more scripts which now need nearly no manual clicking, weight painting etc. anymore. I will definitely share them but until now I cannot get a corrrect animation working. And so I'll wait until this is fixed. Could somebody of you help me what is wrong? The flag gets "exaggerated"...
www.fsdeveloper.com www.fsdeveloper.com
 
sasquotschi said:
At least I've managed to add several NLAs to the armature of the windsock and bind them to the wind velocity :) But the rest is awful! No idea where the strange distortions come from and why the windsock is rotated this way
Click to expand...

Perhaps you could enlighten me on how I can move the animation to frame 0 then? 😅 As mentioned, when I drag the animation to start at frame 0, the animation won't start until the playback reaches its starting frame (63).
 
Mikea.at said:
To fix the distortion, search for the default_state animation. This fixes the distortion.
www.fsdeveloper.com

MSFS20 - Blender cloth simulation baked to bones

I wrote some more scripts which now need nearly no manual clicking, weight painting etc. anymore. I will definitely share them but until now I cannot get a corrrect animation working. And so I'll wait until this is fixed. Could somebody of you help me what is wrong? The flag gets "exaggerated"...
www.fsdeveloper.com www.fsdeveloper.com
Click to expand...
Thanks! Somehow i missed that :) @Mikea.at maybe add this to the wonderful step by step guide at the beginning of this thread?

So my exported file with animations looks now like:
1645109023199.png


Also the xml file was adjusted to contain the "Default_State":
XML: 
...
<AnimGraph>
   <DefaultState name="Default_State" />
   <BlendTreeState name="Default_State">
   <Animations> ....

But the result is still aweful 👼
1645108971781.png
 
VALROK said:
Perhaps you could enlighten me on how I can move the animation to frame 0 then? 😅 As mentioned, when I drag the animation to start at frame 0, the animation won't start until the playback reaches its starting frame (63).
Click to expand...
Sorry, i don't wanna give any tip that goes beyond using blender as I'm myself far away from using it safe in combination with msfs sdk ;)
 
@sasquotschi Have you tried to apply scale/transforms in blender? Select all in object mode with "A", then Ctrl-A, apply all transforms.
 
sasquotschi said:
Sorry, i don't wanna give any tip that goes beyond using blender as I'm myself far away from using it safe in combination with msfs sdk ;)
Click to expand...
It is actually still "only" within Blender. I haven't reached a point where I can export any of the project, sadly.

It should be simple, yet it's one of the more complex steps in this project -.-
 
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